By Keckler
Finally in Manhattan, the final five Quickfire at Le Cirque where they have to recreate one of their iconic dishes, potato-wrapped sea bass. Hung and Casey pull it off, Hung better than Casey, which is why he wins it. And is proud of it. Proud, proud, proud! If he were an Anthony Trollope character, he'd be Bishop Proudie. Brian and Dale did okay, but unfortunately, Sara undercooked her sea bass to a raw degree, a talent she perfects with chicken during the Elimination Challenge.
Speaking of sending people home, the cheftestants are required to make a dish that incorporates the simple chicken, onion, and potato, and once again, Hung manages to come out on top with Casey a very close second. If only she hadn't decided to call her two-hour braised chicken "coq au vin," she might have had a fighting chance with the deans of the French Culinary Institute -- and with Colicchio, who becomes obsessed with this point of semantics to an annoying degree, but his harping on it (and Casey's responses) do enlighten viewers as to exactly what the dish's qualifications are. It smelled kind of like a "the producers want us to give a lesson on terminology" moment, but anyway, amazingly, Brian's neon green plate of crazy impresses the judges, so he's also Aspen-safe. Sara is called to carpet for her underdone chicken, Dale for complicating his dish to a degree that made him forget his special honey sauce. In the end, Sara is sent back to Jamaica to pursue her cheese-farm dreams, and the final four are Hung, Casey, Brian, and Dale. Meanwhile, Dale announces that he's a "big gay chef." Thankfully, he's still our Big Gay Chef.
The five cheftestants are finally in New York. Like Prince Akeem, they are very happy to be here. Dale tells us that what drives him most is his uniqueness: he explains, "I'm a big gay chef and I'm gonna outcook your ass." That's an improvement over Dave's motto: "I'm a big gay chef and I'm gonna outcry your ass." The cheftestants stop at food cart, and after ordering her chicken, Casey delicately bats away at the smoke coming off the grill. She tells us she's been on a roll because she's managed to be at the top of most of the recent QFs, as well as winning Elimination Challenges. The Brians, for their part, are very happy to be in New York for "the fragrance." Maybe his dish should focus on smelling like New York. Meanwhile, the Brians have treated themselves to a kicky new hat. It's tweed and floppy and I suspect they bought it off the same guy who sold Ilan all his imitation bling. I also suspect it was all O'Brian's doing.
The cheftestants arrive at Le Cirque for their QF and meet Sirio Maccioni, Le Cirque's "legendary" owner. I'll believe that only if I hear Barney say it. With a slight bow, Maccioni bids them "good evening." Now I sort of want him to go, "One! Two! Three! Four! Five! FIVE cheftestants -- mwah-ha-ha-ha!" with appropriate lightening flashes and bats flying on strings. Everyone is served one of Le Cirque's classic dishes: potato-wrapped sea bass on a bed of leeks and oyster mushrooms. Hung favors us with his opinion of the dish: "The dish -- you tasted every ingredient: the creaminess of the leeks, the bass, and the sauce...it all worked." I'm sure Le Cirque will be very happy to hear that, Hung. It is explained to us that Le Cirque has had this dish on their menu for twenty years and it is not served to the rabble, only to VIPs. Padma tells the cheftestants that they will have twenty-five minutes to recreate the dish in Le Cirque's kitchens. Dale reacts to us, "Over twenty years, that dish has been refined. Okay, twenty years? Now, you have twenty minutes!"
The cheftestants are shown to the kitchens, where many line chefs appear to be glaring at them. Or, at least, directed to glare at them. Jason Kellert, Executive Sous Chef of Le Cirque, has been deputized to explain their stations and mise en place to them. The three necessary potatoes are there (unpeeled) and the leeks have been trimmed. The sea bass is in a Tupperware tub, and there's a bottle of oil and other necessary seasonings. I wonder if the leeks have been washed as well. Getting the sand out from under all those layers can be a bitch. In addition to the mise en place, the cheftestants are allowed to use anything in the kitchen. Kellert asks if they have any questions. "Yes, I do," Hung says immediately. The cook sort of looks at him as one would a bug. Showing off a bit, Hung asks what number on the slicer (deli, I assume) they use to slice the potatoes. Kellert explains that actually, Hung, they will all be using mandolines, not big-ass slicers. Yuck. With the mandolines, there's a far greater chance that they will screw up the potato slices. Using a big deli slicer is easier because the blade is doing all the work, not your hand. Dale asks about blanching the leeks and learns they are blanched before being cooked. Sara asks if the potatoes are steamed before being wrapped around the fish. Nope, the potato is raw. Wow -- we learned so much about restaurant technique in that one short segment. Those moments on this show are rare and fleeting, so you gotta gobble them up when you can.
Hung is up first, and he brags to us that he's not intimidated by the dish at all. "It's a duplicate of something that's been provided for you -- how simple is that?" Hung asks. Hung slices, seasons, and cooks. I note that it looks like he slightly squared off his peeled potato before dragging it down the mandoline. A chef stops by to look at Hung's progress. Hung continues to brag to us, "This bass dish is very hard if you don't understand the concept of the potato being wrapped. If it's too thick, it won't brown as fast. If it's too thin, it burns too fast, so there is a technique involved." Hung chops leeks incredibly fast and looks up to smile at the camera. I wonder if the cameraman hoped Hung would take off a fingertip in that exact moment. Hung finishes and presents his dish to Maccioni and Padma. Maccioni says, "Bravo!" to Padma. PRODUCT PLACEMENT! "That's close to the original," says Maccioni. "Very close to the original," Padma agrees. Oh, like you know, you baked potato! Hung rejoins his fellow cheftestants and giggles like a drunk hyena, "I fucking killed it, dude!" Brian is the only one to laugh along with him. Which he does. Loudly. Clearly, MALARKEY! is on the prowl. Hung goes on about someone shaking his hand who also told him, "Awesome job, man! Awesome job." I assume he's talking about the Executive Sous Chef because I don't think "awesome" is really in Maccioni's Old World vocab. Dale says they were all just discussing different ways of doing the dish and asks Hung if he did stovetop or oven. Hung wipes his brow and says he can't tell them anything. Sara frowns. Hung tells us he doesn't want to reveal what techniques he's using. That's fair. I mean, I'm on board with the "not selling each other out at Judges Table" pact, but when it comes to the actual tasks, I don't see why they have to be all show-and-tell about it. Hung keeps telling the other cheftestants that it's such an easy dish that can't be messed up. Man, is Sara going to feel dumb or what? Dale isn't surprised that Hung is holding back on his techniques, because that's just the type of chef he is. The rest of them aren't like that.Instead of showing them individually, we get a montage of Dale, Brian, and Casey cooking. Casey tells us that it's difficult to be a woman in the restaurant industry. She works very hard and expects to be treated with respect. Dale has trouble figuring out how to use the mandoline until one of the chefs shows him. Dale presents his dish to Padma and Maccioni. After tasting it, Maccioni comments, "I don't know why he missed completely -- there's no seasonings." Padma adds, "It doesn't have seasoning," and then points out as if it's a new discovery, "And the leeks aren't seasoned." I know I make fun of Padma, like, a lot, but I like her so much more than the Lee Bot from Season One. See, she may be impersonating a Baked Alaska half the time, but at least she has facets. (Seriously, if you think about it, "high" Padma is totally different from "perma-baked" Padma.)
The Brians bring out their dish . Prodding the fish chunk with her fork, Padma notes that Brian's potatoes aren't wrapped around the entire piece of fish. However, Maccioni thinks it tastes good. Casey is with her dish, and Maccioni decides, "That's better than any. It's cooked well, the taste is good."
As Casey singsongingly sends the cheftestant to the kitchen, Hung asks how it went and whether she got thumbs-up from the judges. I think Casey should tell him that she can't reveal that. Dale tells us that in his opinion, Casey is the one to beat, and it's killing Hung. I would like to see a Casey-Hung face-off for the finale, and I'd like to see Casey beat the pants off Hung. Dale goes on that Hung is the best technical cook: "But in my world, the best food has heart, and when you don't have one, it doesn't taste good." That's such a Dave "Town Cryer" Martin thing to say. Of course, he's another Big Gay Chef.
Sara is the last cheftestant to cook. She asks about the dishwashing station, but the Executive Sous tells her not to worry about it and relieves her of her dishes. Sara says she was very nervous because she didn't know where anything was and she thought she was inconveniencing the Le Cirque chefs, who were in the middle of service. Sara tells us that she couldn't find the sauté pans and got behind on cooking the fish. When time is called, Sara knows her fish is raw. The way they make this QF look is that when Padma calls "TIME!" Sara's fish is still in the pan, unplated. I have never been completely certain that the timed segment is only for cooking the dish, giving them extra time to plate, or if the dish has to be fully plated and garnished when time is called. It's a mystery. Sara serves her dish, and Maccioni and Padma cluck over the bald rawness of the fish.
Sara rejoins the other cheftestants and tells them she didn't have time to cook the fish completely. She sort of makes excuses by saying, "I started my fish six minutes out, and I guess my fish was thicker." "It was raw?" Hung wants to clarify. "It was raw in the middle," Sara says. Hung tells us, "This challenge is going to demoralize my competitors. A little bit." I'm curious as how you demoralize "a little bit." Isn't that sort of like being "a little bit pregnant"? With Padma bogarting Maccioni's arm, the two judges arrive to announce the winner and losers. Maccioni congratulates all of the cheftestants for their efforts, acknowledging that the dish is not an easy one to replicate. Tell that to Hung. When Padma asks which of the dishes was most unlike his dish, Maccioni just says, "You," dismissively in Sara's general direction. Maccioni states that her fish was not cooked. For the winners, Maccioni liked both Hung's and Casey's dishes. Maccioni -- charmingly or insultingly, depending on how you wish to view this -- says that because Casey is so attractive, he'd like to name her the winner, but really it's Hung. What was Casey saying earlier about how hard it is to get respect as a chick chef?
The cheftestants retire to their rooms in Flatotel, which I think is the twee-est name for a hotel since THEhotel. One day, there's going to be an A Hotel. "Where are you staying?" "Oh, I'm staying at A Hotel." Stupid, stupid, stupid. Dale tells us that being on the show is humbling and adds, "You know, you sit on the couch, watching the show and be like, 'Oh, I can do that shit.' Well, you know what? Most of you? You can't!" Has Dale been reading TWoP Chef? Hung folds his clothes in his room and tells us that it would mean so much to him to make it to the finals in Aspen because he's an immigrant. He says, "I'm doing this to show all the immigrants in America that it takes hard work, and a dream, and dedication and you'll get whatever you strive for."* (*Offer not available in Mexico) The cheftestants go to bed.The day, the cheftestants arrive at the French Culinary Institute. Padma tells them that the Elimination Challenge was created by the deans and master chefs of the FCI. They created a challenge that they feel is the ultimate French culinary test. "They consider working with these ingredients to be the ultimate test of skill, technique, and creativity," Padma says. She whips the lid off a silver plate to reveal chicken, potatoes, and onions on a bed of parsley. Brian tells us, "Our very last and final Elimination is chicken, a russet potato, and a yellow onion." And a stick of butter. Hung brags, "Those are perfect flavor combinations, classics. Score for me." Given all his lip about "average" palates, Hung never struck me as the type that would cotton to a classic challenge. Are we going to get another lecture from him about how people have been roasting chicken and mashing potatoes for thousands of years? Padma explains, "The deans and master chefs believe that the simpler the ingredients, the greater the test of the chefs skill and imagination. You must take these basics and make them no less than sublime." Hung, as the Quickfire winner, will get an extra thirty minutes to cook and also gets to serve first.
The cheftestants shop at the Greenmarket in Union Square. The Brians talk about making a shepherd's pie using just the three ingredients provided, but then he gets excited over artisanal pheasant sausage. ["Well, who doesn't?" -- Miss Alli] Sara stops at a cheese booth and talks to the purveyor about her stinky wares. Sara tells us that she's trying to open her own cheese dairy, and if she wins Top Chef, she's going back to Jamaica and use the prize money for a farm. Dale and Casey shop together. Dale tells us that he and Casey have gotten really close. Uh-oh, does that mean Dale will be the to be struck by the Casey Curse and get sent home tonight? Dale tells Casey he's going "balls out" on his dish. Casey exclaims over ramps and tells us she's pretty certain she's going to make coq au vin the way her French grandmother made it. Didn't your French grandmother also teach you that it's pronounced "coq au van" not "coq au von"? And also that "coq" means "cock," not chicken?
Hung starts his prep while the other cheftestants watch. He says, "I want to take the time to do everything with finesse, style, grace, and elegance." Get him a pillbox hat and he's Jackie O. Hung goes on that he wanted to show his fellow cheftestants what technique is. Brian tells us that Hung does have incredible knife and cooking skills, adding that "this dish is about being, like, a fabulous flavor." Tonight, we are suddenly getting interviews with Brian, Hung, and Dale with clothes, hairstyles, and facial hair that are totally different from what we've seen all year. I suspect they were filmed in Aspen, which means Dale is definitely going. Hung wants to showcase classic French techniques, so he's going to sous-vide his chicken, crisp the skin, and serve it with Pommes Dauphine and a salad. Hung explains that the sous-vide process seals all the flavor and moisture into the chicken and allows the meat to be poached very slowly at a low temperature. "These are common things that all chefs understand and should know if they've been classically trained," he adds pompously.The other cheftestants finally get into the kitchen to start cooking. Juxtaposing Hung's ego, we get Casey telling us, "I'm not classically trained, but there's more to being a chef than just classical training." Sara tells us she does things that are classic but she adds her own twist. Hung tells us, "Brian's dish looked like a pile of mess. Very home-style cooking." Which is only enjoyable to average palates. And we have now come to that time of night when The Brian Show: Now With More MALARKEY! delights and entertains us. The Brians explain to us, "I have a bright-light, extreme-heavy, peasant-expensive, gourmet meal." He really doesn't know if he's coming or going, does he? The Brians keep going, "I'm gonna to take all the dark meat and put it on the bottom of my dish, and that's going to be kind of all baked together. And on top of that I'm gonna take a really nice, kind of light-fluffy mashed potato and fold in my leeks to make it neon green, so there's going to be a brightness to it, an earthiness, a richness to it." When has "neon" green ever been appetizing for anything other than a Cancun nightclub shot? Sara says she's staying true to her Jamaican roots by doing chicken fricassée. She's marinating the chicken in goat's-milk yogurt and mustard and then doing potato and pearl couscous risotto with an onion confit and salad. ["I have to add here that in the future, I will always quote Sara when describing any unusual beauty routine: "I am marinating my breasts in a goat's yogurt." -- Miss Alli] Given the probable nationality of the judges, it had better be a real confit and not just throwing the name around as they so often do on this show. Also, how is fricassée Jamaican? Dale is doing a duet of chicken: two different dishes with the same sauce to show how versatile the sauce is. Do you know why I'm not upset? Because a "duet" is totally different from a "duo." Totally.
Colicchio stops by for his Sniff 'n' Sneer, checking in on Dale first. Dale explains his dish: "One of my favorite things is, I make a potato and onion puree and mount that with a little bit of crème fraîche, and I'm going to make it into two sauces, one truffle and one rosemary, and two different chicken preparations, basically do a duet on the plate." Colicchio moves on to Brian, who says, "I'm kinda doing like a peasant's pie today." Colicchio's smile drops comically. Yeah, and wasn't it supposed to be shepherd's pie? Shepherds and peasants aren't exactly interchangeable, dude. One does revolting things with sheep and the other just revolts. Colicchio asks why this is the winning dish. "I'm just going with something that is good flavor with good flavor and good flavor. If I mess that up, I deserve to go home," Brian explains. I don't even understand him any more. Over at Casey's station, Colicchio learns that she's doing a "classic French coq au vin." Except with chicken. So the "classic" part? Not so much. She should have told Colicchio and the other judges that she was doing "poulet au vin" or, at the very least, that it was her own take on coq au vin -- just something that acknowledged that she knows it's not actually "classic" to use a chicken instead of an old cock. And you know, according to Clarissa Dickson Wright, there's a lot of good in an old cock. With that "classic" coq au vin, Casey will be serving pommes puree, ramps, and fresh asparagus.Outside the kitchen, Colicchio reports that he spoke to Hung, "When I asked if he's ever done the Pommes Dauphinoise, he said, yeah, eight years ago, he'd kind of played around with it -- maybe not the best choice if he doesn't know exactly how to do it." It's also maybe not the best choice to snark on Hung when you don't appear to know the difference between Pommes Dauphine and Pommes Dauphinoise, Colicchio. They're two different dishes, dude. Pommes Dauphine is exactly what Hung is doing -- pureed potatoes mixed with choux paste (cream puff dough) and fried into balls. Pommes Dauphinoise is when you scallop the potatoes and bake them with cheese in a gratin dish. Colicchio goes on that he thinks Sara is making couscous again to prove she can actually do it, and that Brian told him he's always getting dumped on at Judges Table for trying to do too much, so he's scaling himself back this time. Why do I have a hard time believing that? Colicchio also thinks that Dale is stretching it with his difficult dish and that he might have trouble plating it. Finally, with Casey, Colicchio notes that coq au vin is usually made with an older rooster, not chicken. I find it suspicious that Colicchio has managed to pretty much predict what the complaints against every dish will be. Sure, he's supposedly standing there in the kitchen where the cheftestants are cooking, but we don't see any of them behind him. There's no reason to believe this wasn't shot after the final verdict.
The panel of FCI judges arrives and Colicchio introduces the cheftestants to: Dorothy Hamilton, the founder and CEO of FCI,; André Soltner, Dean of Classics Studies; Alain Sailhac, Dean Emeritus; Nils Noren, Vice President of Culinary Studies; Jacques Torres, Dean of Pastry Arts (Colicchio adds he's also known as "Mr. Chocolate"); and Cesare Casella, Dean of Italian Studies. Chef Torres calls out, "Thank you!" all excitedly when Colicchio introduces him. He's simply adorable. Colicchio admits he's humbled to be standing before all these culinary giants, so he's sure the cheftestants are as well. I doubt Hung is. Dale tells us, "It's kind of like the Last Supper. All you see is Jesus' Apostles of culinary greatness." Okay, so who's Jesus then? Hung, because he's already hung? Or maybe Sara, because she's going to get crucified?The cheftestants finish their dishes, and Hung asks if Casey can help him plate. Casey apologizes but she just can't. Hung tells her it's okay. Yeah, Hung, you had an extra thirty minutes -- plate it your own damn self. Hung repeats his mantra, "I'm here for myself, I came here by myself, and hopefully I can win this by myself." Hung presents his dish of Sous-Vide Chicken (poached in butter), Crisped Chicken Skin Chip, Pommes Dauphine, and a salad. Underneath it all, there's egg in some form (he doesn't clarify what it's doing there) and roasted chicken jus with truffles. The judges all seem to like the dish, but Chef Soltner thinks the Pommes Dauphine should have been much, much lighter. Hung tells us that when he looks at what the other cheftestants are doing, he feels pretty confident in his dish. Leggo that ego, Hung!
Hung helps Sara plate her dish, and Sara tells us she's not classically trained in French cuisine, so it's nerve-racking to have all these great chefs as her judges. Sara's dish goes out to the judges and she follows to explain how she's Jamaican, so her fricassée chicken makes her feel "homey and warm and cozy." I'm still really not getting how fricassée is Jamaican. The whole point of fricassée is that it's all white. The chicken is cooked, but not allowed to brown (very anti-Jamaica, if you ask me) and is served in a white cream sauce with mushrooms and glazed onions. Anyway, Sara explains, "I did that with a sheep's-cheese-marinated yogurt, uh, chicken breast, seared and sliced." Wait, what? She told us earlier that she marinated it in goat's-cheese yogurt. She also did a confit of onions, a microgreens salad, and an Israeli couscous and potato risotto. After she leaves, one of the judges criticizes the confit, saying when you make confit, it's supposed to be like marmalade. Chef Noren says he's no Jamaican, but he used to have two reggae bands in Sweden (Padma giggles at this point, probably assuming he will pass the dutchie from the left-hand side) and he went to Jamaica regularly, yet he doesn't taste anything Jamaican in the dish. Colicchio agrees and adds that Sara told him she was using "some of those spices." Gail announces that her chicken is "quite undercooked," which she's "not a huge fan of." Dorothy Hamilton says the dish was overly ambitious, given the required ingredients, and she thinks that the concept was great, but Sara could use some years at the FCI.
Dale plates his dish and acknowledges that it is a very risky dish. He admits that he usually sacrifices presentation over taste, but this time, he was really going for presentation. Dale presents his duet of chicken and explains, "Underneath the confit of leg is a truffled potato and onion puree. On the other side, I have the same puree, except it does not have truffle, and a roasted chicken breast." The judges complain at the lack of jus and that the dish is so complicated that it got cold. In the back, Dale realizes that he screwed up and forgot his honey-rosemary sauce. He's pretty upset because he says his sauce "turned out fucking beautiful." Chef Torres says the concept was good but the realization is lacking.
Brian says he learned from Le Cirque that you don't need to junk up your dish with a lot of ingredients; you just have to cook them in the right way. Dale confides in us, "Brian? I'm like -- what was that big, green turd on his plate? Because it was crazy." Speaking of crazy, MALARKEY! presents his dish to the judges, "UMMM, WHAT WE'VE DONE HERE IS I'VE KIND OF DONE A SHEPHERD'S PIE OR KIND OF A PEASANT'S PIE, USING THE CHICKEN IN THE BOTTOM AND THEN I KIND OF CONFITED THE YELLOW ONIONS AND MY PARSNIP, RUSSET, RAMPS POTATO PUREE." (Someone should gently explain to MALARKEY! that "russet" and "potato" aren't two different things.) Colicchio wonders over the extreme green of Brian's purée and asks, "Is it all natural?" Is he asking if Brian used food coloring? "No, it's all ramps," Brian tells him. He leaves, and the judges eat. The judges really enjoy the dish. Chef Soltner says it's the first dish that is at the right temperature and the right seasoning. Colicchio actually goes on record as saying, "I like this dish a lot." Wow, that sort of comment from him is almost unheard of.
As Casey finishes her dish, a plate falls and breaks, but it doesn't seem to be a big deal. Casey tells us that it would be great to have a female win Top Chef. She presents her dish to the judges, calling it "a light coq au vin." Casey explains, "It's a braised chicken thigh and it's got red wine and some golden cipollini, a spring ramp on the side with some fresh asparagus." There are also whipped potatoes. The judges like the dish. They think it has lots of flavor and is unpretentious and well-done. Colicchio specifically points out to Chef Soltner, "She said it's coq au vin." Tattletale. Chef Soltner says, "She cannot do a coq au vin in two hours." "Or with a chicken," Colicchio adds and then says that if Casey had just called it "braised chicken," she would have been better off. Chef Noren says that the first dish was the most refined by far, but Chef Torres -- the chocolate-dipped cutie pie -- says, "The first dish was very interesting, but if we look just at the blind tasting and the flavor, I love that last dish. That was the best dish to me." Colicchio asks Chef Torres what his least favorite dish was. He says the "turd," but he means the third, Dale's dish, and not Brian's green turd. Other judges think Sara's dish was the worst.
Back in the kitchen, the cheftestants toast each other with wine. Casey thinks Hung is her biggest competition right now. She also thought she had an edge over him in this particular competition because he's done sous-vide before. Dale tells us, "I threw my balls on the table for the biggest chefs in the country and said, 'Fuck it, I'm gonna try and do what I wanna to do.'" What's with all the sudden balls talk in this episode? It's like they didn't want to do it before because it was a very sensitive issue for CJ. Padma arrives to thank the cheftestants for "a very interesting meal" and says she'll see them at Judges Table. After Padma leaves, Casey repeats, "Interesting?"Judges Table. It looks like the judges are in the exact same room as "Snacks On A Plane," which means that either the cheftestants and judges went all the way back to Newark for tonight's judging, or that last week the cheftestants actually did make it to New York before CJ was sent home. Colicchio thinks all the cheftestants did a pretty good job, and the judges discuss all the dishes in turn. Hung's dish was technically impressive and good, but the Pommes Dauphine weren't. It's notable that Colicchio mentions that Dale forgot his honey sauce, something he didn't bring up while eating it. While Brian's dish was bold and delicious, Padma thinks the pheasant sausage upstaged the chicken. They agree that Casey shouldn't have called her dish "coq au vin," but they liked it overall.
The cheftestants are brought out to stand before the judges and Hung is asked why his dish should win. He waxes braggy about all of it: simple, flavorful, elegant, and the techniques were "on point." Chef Soltner doesn't think his Pommes Dauphine technique was all that. Hung frowns, so Colicchio explains that Pommes Dauphine are supposed to puff up and be very light. Hung scrambles for an explanation that he fried the dough too early, "And maybe it went down because I had to plate by myself." Whatever. He doesn't name names, he just says he asked for help but everyone was busy, so he did it himself. Again, Hung, you had an EXTRA THIRTY MINUTES! Plus, you're there for yourself and yourself will win, so you don't need anyone but yourself. I guess the only time he's not there for himself is when himself gets it wrong.
Moving on to Casey, Colicchio wonders why she didn't just call her coq au vin "braised chicken." Casey explains, "Well, my grandmother is French. She taught us the importance of food. Going out and getting an old rooster to make coq au vin for us? Is not necessarily something she did, and she used chicken." Okay, I think Casey was wronged in this episode -- possibly twice, because Maccioni specifically said that her potato-wrapped bass was "better than any" -- and I think she should have won, but her tone here is still very "Um, my grandmother? Thought we were too good to eat old rooster, so she spoiled us with chicken." Chef Soltner says that he liked the dish overall and liked that she went with something traditional, but two hours is not enough time to do coq au vin. Casey defends her bold move and says that she hopes that what she made was close enough in flavor to overcome the technical issue.
Moving on to Sara, Colicchio asks if she got enough Jamaican flavors in the dish. Sara said she didn't want the thyme, peppers, and allspice to overpower the dish. Padma points out that Dorothy Hamilton thought the chicken was rubbery, but Gail found her chicken to be "almost raw." Gail dramatically recounts, "Chef Jacques Torres turned to me and said, 'You shouldn't eat your chicken -- it's still very pink in the center.' And it really was." Sara says she sliced the chicken herself and checked every single piece. Chef Soltner tells Gail, "I saw yours and it was undercooked." Gail turns to Sara and shrugs her, "See?" Sara apologizes, shaking her head. Padma wonders if Brian was worried about his sausage overpowering the chicken. Brian was worried about it but says he "got a lot of chicken in there." Colicchio says, "It was a good dish -- do you think it was refined enough to win?" "Uh, yes, sir. 'Fabulous' is the word we [all four of the Brians] were going for and that was flavor -- it wasn't about just putting dots on the plate, it was about making just a fabulous dish." Finally, we come to Dale, who admits he forgot the sauce. Colicchio tells him that duets are problematic because they can fight with one another. Dale acknowledges, "The duet was a stupid idea." The cheftestants are sent away.
In the back, Sara insists, "That chicken was not fucking raw because I cut every single one -- I don't know what the fuck she's talking about." Dale and Hung comment that any dish can get nitpicked.
The judges re-discuss all the dishes. Gail's favorite was Casey's, Padma's favorite was Brian's, but Chef Soltner says that if he were to hire someone, it would be Hung. Colicchio goes over how Dale and Sara failed, and the cheftestants are finally brought back in. Chef Soltner, as the guest chef, gets to announce the winner, and he names Hung. Hung is thrilled. Padma tells him he's going to the finale and adds that Casey and Brian are going as well. Those three are excused and celebrate loudly with each other in the back.
After the commercials, Colicchio wants to know what drives Dale and Sara as chefs. Dale goes on about how cooking is love: "You can taste it when the chef has not had their heart broken and you know who got laid last night." Ewwww, you do? How do you -- actually, no, I really don't want to know. Really, really, really don't want to know that. Dale adds, "That's how I cook -- I'm the first one to notice my faults because I don't want to give them to you." Huh? Sara says, "Everything about food drives me. Everything -- the beauty of food, the flavors, the textures -- it drives me. It encompasses my whole life!" Colicchio says, "Eleven competitions -- this is the first I'm hearing this." YOU'VE NEVER ASKED BEFORE! Sara says she's reserved but she just gets the job done.
Colicchio launches into his ReCrap of both dishes and says they both missed the mark for very different reasons. Padma looks at them sadly and says, "Dale..." REEEREEREEREE! Misdirection Alert! Misdirection Alert! "You're going on to the finale, [Dale bows his head to her] and Sara? Please pack your knives and go." Sara, choked up, thanks them all and hugs Dale. Sara tells us that she didn't dot her "i"s and cross her "t"s. In the back, Sara gets hugs. Sara tells us, "I had a good ride -- I made it to the top five. I'm happy." And then she starts to cry. Not sign of a happy person. "Of course, I'm just going to miss my friends," Sara says. And the $10,000. The cheftestants break out the Champagne as Brian hugs her. Sara picks up her stuff and leaves. She tells us that she's going to make her cheese somewhere in the world. After Sara is gone, the Final Four can celebrate properly. Casey says she's surrounded by very talented chefs and notes that, "All of us have, at one point or another, been on top or on bottom." And Dale has been a top. Brian tells us he's going to have to come with a lot of "mojo" to win the game, and for that? I can't fucking wait. Hung says he still has a lot of tricks up his sleeve.
week: Aspen! And Eric Ripert! And fishing! Dude, and Colicchio tells someone, "We don't see you in food at all," which I'm sorry, but to say that to a Final Four competitor? It's sort of like, if that's how you really feel, why did you bring them to the Final Four?